Benda LF-01 nearing completion as new design pictures show

SINCE we first covered this bike in the spring of this year, the updates to the Benda LF-01 (previously called the BD700) have been easy to keep tabs on.

With pretty much every design tweak or structural change, a new set of images would seemingly leak out from within the firm to let us know what is going on. And today is no different, as we can see what looks like the bike in pretty much completed form.

The bike uses an inline four-cylinder engine that bears more than a striking resemblance to the unit found in the Honda CB650R and CBR650R. Internally the powerplant is a 650cc in size with double-overhead cams and a suspected output of around 100bhp.

Another nod to the bikes nearly completed form is the use of Nissin radially mounted brake calipers, complete with an ABS sensor wire leading to the caliper on the righthand side of the bike. If this were another speculative styling exercise, its likely such a detail would have been omitted.

One of the key features of the bike is the distinctive-looking headlight. Even on the grainy teaser images from earlier in the year it was present and causing much speculation. As the bike nears production though, more and more information is coming to light [geddit?], and that headlight actually doubles as an air intake. The headlight portion is the small central part, most likely containing a high-power LED. The air is channelled around the light, directly through the airbox, and then into the bike’s central plenum chamber. From there the air travels through a single throttle body and into the engine.